(C&C) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

[Ahzoh]

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Could a culture with a technology level of 400AD could possibly develop pencils made of "graphite with a clay binding" and it wouldn't seem anachronistic? I dunno where they might get graphite from though.
And maybe they also invented what are essentially crayons?

Graphite doesn't seem too unbelievable. Just say "oh, they were mining for xyz, and they found graphite, and found that they could write with it". Honestly, I'm surprised that pencils are that new of an invention.They were invented in the 1500s on Earth, surprisingly late.

Crayons need artificial coloring, but as soon as they can make wax, crayons could exist. Surprisingly, the idea behind crayons is older than that of pencils. The idea of using pigments and wax to color stones was Egyptian in origin. Pastels, which had a cylinder shaped piece of pigment date from around the 1400s. Crayons themselves come however from the 1800s, much later than pencils.

Well pencils made of lead were used since Roman times.

[qwed117]

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Could a culture with a technology level of 400AD could possibly develop pencils made of "graphite with a clay binding" and it wouldn't seem anachronistic? I dunno where they might get graphite from though.
And maybe they also invented what are essentially crayons?

Graphite doesn't seem too unbelievable. Just say "oh, they were mining for xyz, and they found graphite, and found that they could write with it". Honestly, I'm surprised that pencils are that new of an invention.They were invented in the 1500s on Earth, surprisingly late.

Crayons need artificial coloring, but as soon as they can make wax, crayons could exist. Surprisingly, the idea behind crayons is older than that of pencils. The idea of using pigments and wax to color stones was Egyptian in origin. Pastels, which had a cylinder shaped piece of pigment date from around the 1400s. Crayons themselves come however from the 1800s, much later than pencils.

Well pencils made of lead were used since Roman times.

Huh?

Your original question still stands as graphite though. It's highly plausible, again, these things were invented surprisingly late in the history of the world. The clay binding thing isn't necessary though.

[Ahzoh]

Your original question still stands as graphite though. It's highly plausible, again, these things were invented surprisingly late in the history of the world. The clay binding thing isn't necessary though.

Good, then the Vrkhazhians can discover graphite, realize their usefulness as writing utensils and then eventually make wooden casings for them of similar shape to paintbrush handles, with maybe some fancy designs.
What do you mean the clay binding isn't necessary?

[zyma]

Speaking of such things, is there an official definition anywhere of what separates the genres of fantasy and sci-fi from one another?

Yes, actually, the UN got all the countries of the world together and they passed a binding global law to define officially what separates the genres of fantasy and sci-fi from one another. Authors or publishers who mislabel their books are now thrown into tiger pens.

Wait, no, that didn't happen.

Which institution are you expecting might have "officially" defined genres?

Yeah, OK. I was just asking. For all I know, there could be some writers' association or something I've never heard of that thinks this kind of thing is worth deliberation. I'm sure most of us have heard of less Earth-shattering decisions having been officially made by some group. But maybe I didn't intend for "officially" to be taken 100% literally, but rather to mean something closer to "fairly widely accepted", as words are not always used with their exact dictionary definitions in mind. I thought it would be clear that I was exaggerating a bit, because I thought it would be obvious that I didn't think that some actually official decision on the matter was the only, or even the most likely, answer to my question, as opposed to some kind of generally accepted distinction. I like the genres in question, but I'm not incredibly into them, so to speak, or active in any communities of people who enjoy them. I know there are huge, dedicated fans who do many activities like joining clubs and writing things about the works of fiction they enjoy, so I figured I might be unaware of some general consensus about this. I really don't think wondering about such things makes me that incredibly stupid, but maybe I'm wrong.

[Salmoneus]

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Could a culture with a technology level of 400AD could possibly develop pencils made of "graphite with a clay binding" and it wouldn't seem anachronistic? I dunno where they might get graphite from though.
And maybe they also invented what are essentially crayons?

Graphite doesn't seem too unbelievable. Just say "oh, they were mining for xyz, and they found graphite, and found that they could write with it". Honestly, I'm surprised that pencils are that new of an invention.They were invented in the 1500s on Earth, surprisingly late.

What's the surprise?

Graphite is incredibly rare - there are still only a few dozen graphite mines in the world. And graphite isn't immediately interesting like shiny gold or silver - at first glance it looks like more-breakable lead, which isn't worth exploring much, which means you basically need to be given the stuff before you bother to investigate its properties. And mining in ye olden days relied on things being at the surface or right next to another mine, because there wasn't much in the way of prospecting.

So graphite pencils could not become significant until:
a) somebody stumbles upon a high-quality large-scale surface deposit of graphite. Which in Europe basically meant a storm had to pull down a tree to expose the strange surface of one particular large rock in a remote valley in northern england, and that rock went on to be the only commercially viable source of graphite for almost half a millennium;
b) somehow the price of this weird, super-rare stuff (which is much more valuable for casting iron) has to become competitive with the older method of "burning some wood". Note that for centuries graphite pencils were only used by fine artists, for whom the smoothness and permanency of graphite were significant. If you just wanted to make some marks on some paper, you could just use charcoal...


In particular, I don't see French art pencils (i.e. powdered graphite mixed with clay) cropping up easily. Even if you use pencils, you'll just use graphite pencils. Diluting the graphite with clay is an expensive process only discovered due to embargoes on graphite trading.[/quote]

[Salmoneus]

Your original question still stands as graphite though. It's highly plausible, again, these things were invented surprisingly late in the history of the world. The clay binding thing isn't necessary though.

Good, then the Vrkhazhians can discover graphite, realize their usefulness as writing utensils and then eventually make wooden casings for them of similar shape to paintbrush handles, with maybe some fancy designs.
What do you mean the clay binding isn't necessary?

The clay isn't necessary. The graphite makes the mark. The clay is there to reduce the price (assuming that you have access to cheap industrial machinery, otherwise it'll make it more expensive). Mixing in clay also lets you colour the result a little bit (though if you want pigments, coloured pencils will not be the easy way), and more importantly lets you control and alter the hardness of the product, which can be important for artistic purposes.

[Salmoneus]

Speaking of such things, is there an official definition anywhere of what separates the genres of fantasy and sci-fi from one another?

Yes, actually, the UN got all the countries of the world together and they passed a binding global law to define officially what separates the genres of fantasy and sci-fi from one another. Authors or publishers who mislabel their books are now thrown into tiger pens.

Wait, no, that didn't happen.

Which institution are you expecting might have "officially" defined genres?

Yeah, OK. I was just asking. For all I know, there could be some writers' association or something I've never heard of that thinks this kind of thing is worth deliberation. I'm sure most of us have heard of less Earth-shattering decisions having been officially made by some group. But maybe I didn't intend for "officially" to be taken 100% literally, but rather to mean something closer to "fairly widely accepted", as words are not always used with their exact dictionary definitions in mind. I thought it would be clear that I was exaggerating a bit, because I thought it would be obvious that I didn't think that some actually official decision on the matter was the only, or even the most likely, answer to my question, as opposed to some kind of generally accepted distinction. I like the genres in question, but I'm not incredibly into them, so to speak, or active in any communities of people who enjoy them. I know there are huge, dedicated fans who do many activities like joining clubs and writing things about the works of fiction they enjoy, so I figured I might be unaware of some general consensus about this. I really don't think wondering about such things makes me that incredibly stupid, but maybe I'm wrong.

I didn't say you were stupid. But it was clearly a very silly question - who could make such a definition official?

As for consensus, no, there is the opposite of consensus. This is what people have flame wars about. The merest mention of the demarcation issue will hijack any discussion into endless ranting and refusal to compromise.

But there are basically five major positions on the question, in my experience:
a) everything is fantasy unless it is 100% scientifically accurate, unless the inaccuracies are the ones I like to read about
b) everything is SF unless it has wizards and dragons of exactly the sort I like to read about, AND doesn't have any nasty SF-ish things that I don't like to read about
c) Fantasy is Tolkien and SF is Asimov, and everything else is some weird new revolutionary slipstreamy cool-genre, dude, and because I read it I'm much cooler than you geeks and nerds who read fantasy and SF
d) oh, who the fuck cares? [refined version: 'fantasy' and 'sf' refer to two different historical traditions, each with their own mannerisms of style and setting, and there is no reason why there may not be some works that draw on elements of both traditions]
e) [the genre that I like] is about [good thing], whereas [the genre I don't like] is about [bad thing]. For instance, "science fiction is about hope and progress, whereas fantasy is about pessimism and conservativism", or "fantasy is about the human spirit and our wonder toward the universe, whereas science fiction is about dehumanisation and the reduction of life to cold equations".

And I'm not even getting into the differences between "SF", "sci-fi", and "science fiction".

[qwed117]

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Could a culture with a technology level of 400AD could possibly develop pencils made of "graphite with a clay binding" and it wouldn't seem anachronistic? I dunno where they might get graphite from though.
And maybe they also invented what are essentially crayons?

Graphite doesn't seem too unbelievable. Just say "oh, they were mining for xyz, and they found graphite, and found that they could write with it". Honestly, I'm surprised that pencils are that new of an invention.They were invented in the 1500s on Earth, surprisingly late.

What's the surprise?

Graphite is incredibly rare - there are still only a few dozen graphite mines in the world. And graphite isn't immediately interesting like shiny gold or silver - at first glance it looks like more-breakable lead, which isn't worth exploring much, which means you basically need to be given the stuff before you bother to investigate its properties. And mining in ye olden days relied on things being at the surface or right next to another mine, because there wasn't much in the way of prospecting.

So graphite pencils could not become significant until:
a) somebody stumbles upon a high-quality large-scale surface deposit of graphite. Which in Europe basically meant a storm had to pull down a tree to expose the strange surface of one particular large rock in a remote valley in northern england, and that rock went on to be the only commercially viable source of graphite for almost half a millennium;
b) somehow the price of this weird, super-rare stuff (which is much more valuable for casting iron) has to become competitive with the older method of "burning some wood". Note that for centuries graphite pencils were only used by fine artists, for whom the smoothness and permanency of graphite were significant. If you just wanted to make some marks on some paper, you could just use charcoal...


In particular, I don't see French art pencils (i.e. powdered graphite mixed with clay) cropping up easily. Even if you use pencils, you'll just use graphite pencils. Diluting the graphite with clay is an expensive process only discovered due to embargoes on graphite trading.

While I can understand your contentions, you would expect coal mining to occasionally find graphite.
Graphite appears to be extremely common according this website

[loglorn]

Speaking of such things, is there an official definition anywhere of what separates the genres of fantasy and sci-fi from one another?

Yes, actually, the UN got all the countries of the world together and they passed a binding global law to define officially what separates the genres of fantasy and sci-fi from one another. Authors or publishers who mislabel their books are now thrown into tiger pens.

Wait, no, that didn't happen.

Which institution are you expecting might have "officially" defined genres?

Yeah, OK. I was just asking. For all I know, there could be some writers' association or something I've never heard of that thinks this kind of thing is worth deliberation. I'm sure most of us have heard of less Earth-shattering decisions having been officially made by some group. But maybe I didn't intend for "officially" to be taken 100% literally, but rather to mean something closer to "fairly widely accepted", as words are not always used with their exact dictionary definitions in mind. I thought it would be clear that I was exaggerating a bit, because I thought it would be obvious that I didn't think that some actually official decision on the matter was the only, or even the most likely, answer to my question, as opposed to some kind of generally accepted distinction. I like the genres in question, but I'm not incredibly into them, so to speak, or active in any communities of people who enjoy them. I know there are huge, dedicated fans who do many activities like joining clubs and writing things about the works of fiction they enjoy, so I figured I might be unaware of some general consensus about this. I really don't think wondering about such things makes me that incredibly stupid, but maybe I'm wrong.

I didn't say you were stupid. But it was clearly a very silly question - who could make such a definition official?

As for consensus, no, there is the opposite of consensus. This is what people have flame wars about. The merest mention of the demarcation issue will hijack any discussion into endless ranting and refusal to compromise.

But there are basically five major positions on the question, in my experience:
a) everything is fantasy unless it is 100% scientifically accurate, unless the inaccuracies are the ones I like to read about
b) everything is SF unless it has wizards and dragons of exactly the sort I like to read about, AND doesn't have any nasty SF-ish things that I don't like to read about
c) Fantasy is Tolkien and SF is Asimov, and everything else is some weird new revolutionary slipstreamy cool-genre, dude, and because I read it I'm much cooler than you geeks and nerds who read fantasy and SF
d) oh, who the fuck cares? [refined version: 'fantasy' and 'sf' refer to two different historical traditions, each with their own mannerisms of style and setting, and there is no reason why there may not be some works that draw on elements of both traditions]
e) [the genre that I like] is about [good thing], whereas [the genre I don't like] is about [bad thing]. For instance, "science fiction is about hope and progress, whereas fantasy is about pessimism and conservativism", or "fantasy is about the human spirit and our wonder toward the universe, whereas science fiction is about dehumanisation and the reduction of life to cold equations".

And I'm not even getting into the differences between "SF", "sci-fi", and "science fiction".

The fourth option sounds particularly unbiased to my ears.

[HoskhMatriarch]

My opinion on sci-fi vs. fantasy: Fantasy comes from Romantic ideals and sci-fi comes from Enlightenment ideals, hence people who really strongly like only one getting ticked off at people who really strongly only like the other.

[Ahzoh]

What's the surprise?

Graphite is incredibly rare - there are still only a few dozen graphite mines in the world. And graphite isn't immediately interesting like shiny gold or silver - at first glance it looks like more-breakable lead, which isn't worth exploring much, which means you basically need to be given the stuff before you bother to investigate its properties. And mining in ye olden days relied on things being at the surface or right next to another mine, because there wasn't much in the way of prospecting.

So graphite pencils could not become significant until:
a) somebody stumbles upon a high-quality large-scale surface deposit of graphite. Which in Europe basically meant a storm had to pull down a tree to expose the strange surface of one particular large rock in a remote valley in northern england, and that rock went on to be the only commercially viable source of graphite for almost half a millennium;
b) somehow the price of this weird, super-rare stuff (which is much more valuable for casting iron) has to become competitive with the older method of "burning some wood". Note that for centuries graphite pencils were only used by fine artists, for whom the smoothness and permanency of graphite were significant. If you just wanted to make some marks on some paper, you could just use charcoal...


In particular, I don't see French art pencils (i.e. powdered graphite mixed with clay) cropping up easily. Even if you use pencils, you'll just use graphite pencils. Diluting the graphite with clay is an expensive process only discovered due to embargoes on graphite trading.

Couldn't you maybe stumble upon a large surface graphite deposit on a mine-able mountain range?

As for using charcoal... well I never saw any mention of it used an implement for writing and don't know its quality. Though I learned that it is apparently very smudgy and more abrasive than graphite. Dunno if it might rip papyrus.

It might also be useful to consider grease pencils (that crayon-like stuff).

[HoskhMatriarch]

OK, how do you guys decide what kind of technology and magic you want to exist in your conworlds, and how to make it make sense? I have this problem where I just like making cultures, but I can't decide on what the actual world they live in is like, other than that it's fantasy because I like things to happen that don't happen in my normal life and I'm not really into hard science or spaceships. Sometimes I'll write stories that aren't set anywhere in particular that feature not-super-high-tech but still not typical fantasy technology like trains and airships, and then I'll be like "I want to set this in my conworld" but then I don't because I have other stories involving the military fighting with with swords and spears (of course, the most recent story I wrote involving a train has to do with someone who slayed a dragon with a sword, got congratulated, then people were mad once the train got to the next station and they realized that person made the train 32 seconds late). Of course, the Greeks had steam power even if they didn't use it for trains, and you could have airships powered by magic (they could even look like regular ships but fly), but at that point, even if half or more of your technology is powered by magic, it seems like there's really no excuse for people to be riding horses and fighting with swords and spears (although I've seen pictures of gas masks for horses in WWI, so there's that) since they would probably end up with magic-powered guns or something instead of swords and spears even if they haven't invented gunpowder. There's even this anecdote in Hoskhsuer about some cities on another continent that are covered by fire, ice, darkness, or other elements to you unless you enter through the gate, so the people who live there can just touch you and burn you to death if you try to enter, but what kind of technology (or magic-technology-stuff) level would people even have to have to reasonably get to another continent, aside from the fact that that kind of magic seems a bit potentially overpowered?

TL;DR Is there any sort of guide for fantasy worldbuilding that's not making Lord of the Rings clones? I've seen some for sci-fi, but I guess too many people just assume fantasy is easy and it doesn't matter what you do with it since it's not supposed to be realistic. Making cultures and characters = easy for me. Making a world that makes any sort of sense that's not just like Real Life = hard for me currently. Not that the world has to make a whole lot of sense, since there are witches and mermaids and talking animals, it just has to make enough sense to not implode on itself...

[Salmoneus]

While I can understand your contentions, you would expect coal mining to occasionally find graphite.
Graphite appears to be extremely common according this website

...sure, that website calls graphite 'very common'. On a 1-3 scale that's meant to measure all minerals in the world. For context, it also considers opals to 'very common', and silver and rubies to be 'common'. But mediaeval peasants were not in the habit of using their opals and their sapphires for their daily chores... prevalence is relative.

The other thing is, graphite as a mineral is not the same as graphite as a useable resource. The website you link to explicitly says "fine graphite crystals are very rare". Being able to, say, discard small flakes of graphite as impurities in coal is NOT the same as what actually happened (i.e. after the tree blew down, some sheep happened to rub against the stone, so they realised they could mark sheep with the stone, and eventually after some years they realised they could write with it as well). The kind of veins-of-blocks-of-visible-high-quality-graphite-that-can-be-rubbed-against-things-to-visibly-mark-them graphite is very rare. Small flakes and powders trapped in other rocks, much more common.

For instance, we now know in hindsight that small amounts of graphite were mined as a byproduct of something else in the czech republic as early as the mid-first millenium BC. The same mine produced commercial graphite in the last two centuries. Yet as late as the 19th century, when Napoleon's access to borrowdale graphite was cut off, he wasn't able just to get his graphite from that mine. Because getting a commercially viable amount is not the same as getting a bit here and there as byproduct, and modern ore processing was not available in napoleon's day.

[Salmoneus]

My opinion on sci-fi vs. fantasy: Fantasy comes from Romantic ideals and sci-fi comes from Enlightenment ideals, hence people who really strongly like only one getting ticked off at people who really strongly only like the other.

See my option e) above.

Unfortunately, all these ideological definitions run into the problem of not actually relating to the reality of the contents of books (or, if the definition supposedly outweighs anything else, the problem of the definition not matching actual usage). "The Stars My Destionation", for example, is a classic of science fiction. But it's also a perfect example of romanticism in modern fiction - I mean, the whole thing is a retelling of "The Count of Monte Christo"! You can't get much more 'romantic ideals' than Star Wars! But wouldn't you say that something like Pratchett's "Night Watch" and "Small Gods" were clearly Enlightenment-inspired novels?

[Ahzoh]

...sure, that website calls graphite 'very common'. On a 1-3 scale that's meant to measure all minerals in the world. For context, it also considers opals to 'very common', and silver and rubies to be 'common'. But mediaeval peasants were not in the habit of using their opals and their sapphires for their daily chores... prevalence is relative.

The other thing is, graphite as a mineral is not the same as graphite as a useable resource. The website you link to explicitly says "fine graphite crystals are very rare". Being able to, say, discard small flakes of graphite as impurities in coal is NOT the same as what actually happened (i.e. after the tree blew down, some sheep happened to rub against the stone, so they realised they could mark sheep with the stone, and eventually after some years they realised they could write with it as well). The kind of veins-of-blocks-of-visible-high-quality-graphite-that-can-be-rubbed-against-things-to-visibly-mark-them graphite is very rare. Small flakes and powders trapped in other rocks, much more common.

For instance, we now know in hindsight that small amounts of graphite were mined as a byproduct of something else in the czech republic as early as the mid-first millenium BC. The same mine produced commercial graphite in the last two centuries. Yet as late as the 19th century, when Napoleon's access to borrowdale graphite was cut off, he wasn't able just to get his graphite from that mine. Because getting a commercially viable amount is not the same as getting a bit here and there as byproduct, and modern ore processing was not available in napoleon's day.

Ok, well then maybe lead or charcoal is more feasible/likely for a pencil?

[qwed117]

Spoiler:

While I can understand your contentions, you would expect coal mining to occasionally find graphite.
Graphite appears to be extremely common according this website

...sure, that website calls graphite 'very common'. On a 1-3 scale that's meant to measure all minerals in the world. For context, it also considers opals to 'very common', and silver and rubies to be 'common'. But mediaeval peasants were not in the habit of using their opals and their sapphires for their daily chores... prevalence is relative.

The other thing is, graphite as a mineral is not the same as graphite as a useable resource. The website you link to explicitly says "fine graphite crystals are very rare". Being able to, say, discard small flakes of graphite as impurities in coal is NOT the same as what actually happened (i.e. after the tree blew down, some sheep happened to rub against the stone, so they realised they could mark sheep with the stone, and eventually after some years they realised they could write with it as well). The kind of veins-of-blocks-of-visible-high-quality-graphite-that-can-be-rubbed-against-things-to-visibly-mark-them graphite is very rare. Small flakes and powders trapped in other rocks, much more common.

For instance, we now know in hindsight that small amounts of graphite were mined as a byproduct of something else in the czech republic as early as the mid-first millenium BC. The same mine produced commercial graphite in the last two centuries. Yet as late as the 19th century, when Napoleon's access to borrowdale graphite was cut off, he wasn't able just to get his graphite from that mine. Because getting a commercially viable amount is not the same as getting a bit here and there as byproduct, and modern ore processing was not available in napoleon's day.

You realize that opal is silica right? The thing they put in your shoes, the package that says "do not eat"? That's opal.

I think charcoal (or maybe coal idk) could be used as a writing implement much more than graphite. And more likely, they'll use ink.

[Salmoneus]

OK, how do you guys decide what kind of technology and magic you want to exist in your conworlds, and how to make it make sense? I have this problem where I just like making cultures, but I can't decide on what the actual world they live in is like, other than that it's fantasy because I like things to happen that don't happen in my normal life and I'm not really into hard science or spaceships. Sometimes I'll write stories that aren't set anywhere in particular that feature not-super-high-tech but still not typical fantasy technology like trains and airships, and then I'll be like "I want to set this in my conworld" but then I don't because I have other stories involving the military fighting with with swords and spears (of course, the most recent story I wrote involving a train has to do with someone who slayed a dragon with a sword, got congratulated, then people were mad once the train got to the next station and they realized that person made the train 32 seconds late). Of course, the Greeks had steam power even if they didn't use it for trains, and you could have airships powered by magic (they could even look like regular ships but fly), but at that point, even if half or more of your technology is powered by magic, it seems like there's really no excuse for people to be riding horses and fighting with swords and spears (although I've seen pictures of gas masks for horses in WWI, so there's that) since they would probably end up with magic-powered guns or something instead of swords and spears even if they haven't invented gunpowder. There's even this anecdote in Hoskhsuer about some cities on another continent that are covered by fire, ice, darkness, or other elements to you unless you enter through the gate, so the people who live there can just touch you and burn you to death if you try to enter, but what kind of technology (or magic-technology-stuff) level would people even have to have to reasonably get to another continent, aside from the fact that that kind of magic seems a bit potentially overpowered?

TL;DR Is there any sort of guide for fantasy worldbuilding that's not making Lord of the Rings clones? I've seen some for sci-fi, but I guess too many people just assume fantasy is easy and it doesn't matter what you do with it since it's not supposed to be realistic. Making cultures and characters = easy for me. Making a world that makes any sort of sense that's not just like Real Life = hard for me currently. Not that the world has to make a whole lot of sense, since there are witches and mermaids and talking animals, it just has to make enough sense to not implode on itself...

I don't understand your question. How do I decide things? I... decide. It's not really somethign with a 'how' to it, is it? I look at X, and then Y, and I decide which one I prefer. It's just something people do. [Arguably, it's the only thing that people do, and something they do all the time]. You seem to think that every 'decision' has to mean having a book (or a forum) tell you what to do.

If you don't know what you want to do, then you're not doing anything at all. Why are you spending all this time asking people questions about every topic imaginable - why do you want to know the answers? There must be some reason. So, whatever it is you want to do with these answers, just do that. There, decision made. Or, if there are several different things you want to do, do several different things. I'm not seeing the harrowing confrontation with destiny here.

[Ahzoh]

I think charcoal (or maybe coal idk) could be used as a writing implement much more than graphite. And more likely, they'll use ink.

I have been reluctant to consider ink as the main means of writing on the grounds that the major characteristic of using ink is that writing entire words in a single stroke is much preferred because ink is likely to drip the more time you have to hold it in the air.

Thus it would make the Vrkhazhian writing system very different.

A writing implement that is essentially a stick of pigment is much more preferred.

[Salmoneus]

You realize that opal is silica right? The thing they put in your shoes, the package that says "do not eat"? That's opal.

...no, it isn't. Opal is a particular kind of amorphous crystalline hydrated silica. The little packets are filled with silica gel. This is a) not crystalline, and b) not hydrated. That, indeed, is the point: it acts as a desiccant!

Diatom shells are hydrated silica, as is an ingrediant in toothpaste. So these have the same elements in them as opal. But the structure of the material is still entirely different.

If you hydrate your silica gel packets, the result will be opal in the same sense in which your pencils are made out of diamond. Which is to say, not in the slightest.

[zyma]

Spoiler:

But it was clearly a very silly question - who could make such a definition official?

Eh, I still disagree, but I guess that's just because I was the one who asked it… Was it a naive question? Yes, most certainly, but, at least from my inexperienced point of view, it made sense to ask. As I said, I didn't mean my usage of "official" to be taken literally (I now see I should have taken more time to clarify that in my original post), and I'm pretty much an outsider to this "debate" and the communities of people who participate in it. I thought it was possible that some group or groups had announced that they'd come up with "official" definitions for the two genres; I certainly didn't expect everyone, or even anyone, involved in the discussion to suddenly shrug and accept those definitions without question, but I figured they might still be more useful starting points, so to speak, for consideration than "elves vs. spaceships" or something along those lines.

The more I stress myself out over this, the more I realize how completely irrelevant it is…

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As for consensus, no, there is the opposite of consensus. This is what people have flame wars about. The merest mention of the demarcation issue will hijack any discussion into endless ranting and refusal to compromise.

But there are basically five major positions on the question, in my experience:
a) everything is fantasy unless it is 100% scientifically accurate, unless the inaccuracies are the ones I like to read about
b) everything is SF unless it has wizards and dragons of exactly the sort I like to read about, AND doesn't have any nasty SF-ish things that I don't like to read about
c) Fantasy is Tolkien and SF is Asimov, and everything else is some weird new revolutionary slipstreamy cool-genre, dude, and because I read it I'm much cooler than you geeks and nerds who read fantasy and SF
d) oh, who the fuck cares? [refined version: 'fantasy' and 'sf' refer to two different historical traditions, each with their own mannerisms of style and setting, and there is no reason why there may not be some works that draw on elements of both traditions]
e) [the genre that I like] is about [good thing], whereas [the genre I don't like] is about [bad thing]. For instance, "science fiction is about hope and progress, whereas fantasy is about pessimism and conservativism", or "fantasy is about the human spirit and our wonder toward the universe, whereas science fiction is about dehumanisation and the reduction of life to cold equations".

And I'm not even getting into the differences between "SF", "sci-fi", and "science fiction".

Ahh, thank you! Somehow these positions are even less objective than I'd imagined they would be (and I had no idea that there were any differences between those last three terms, either). Based on part of view d, it seems like what I should be asking about/looking further into is what mannerisms, elements, features, etc. are generally considered to be characteristic of the two different historical traditions, although now I wouldn't be surprised if that distinction were also rather nebulous.